JusticeAbberdash, there's no denying that. some of my favorite skate footage to watch has to do with narrow boards, even I got as down as 7'3 at some point back in the early 00's - Monkey Stix deck, I found that one impossible to skate though ! everybody's always skated different stuff and had their preferences. but the wider decks for the pros was a thing for some at one point and those decks weren't even available on the market so that would piss me off a little bit. I remember going through some issues of Transworld Business or whatever it was called at the time and out of all the prefered deck sizes my favorite pros would mention, a lot of them sounded ridiculous to me for I had never seen anything that obnoxiously wide in the wild or even in shops (pre-Internet).
Budgie Lasek : well, like I was saying, those interactions I'm refering to are 15+ years old. they blew my mind back then, but it doesn't mean that they aren't outdated now, or that I'm not over them (actually it would be sad to hold such trivial grudges against inanimate objects and unidentified people for nearly two decades).
I'm aware my reaction had everything to do with how things were presented to me back then and I think that's fine. although to get a clearer picture of what I'm getting at, you also need to consider the era and general context. back then finding any deck in size 8' or over was almost impossible because most companies didn't even make them, besides maybe Black Label and more independent yet poorly distributed (pre-Internet) brands maybe. so you had everyone with nothing bigger than 7.75's at every skate spot snapping them on nollies down 4's then you learn about brands making 8.5's and up for their pros because they hold up better with more distribution surface upon impacts, of course you're going to feel fucked over. then of course just a few years after, Real / DLX started this whole campaign, 'our pros actually ride the same boards you can find in skateshops', which was a good thing, just long overdue as far as fairness ; then it became the cool thing to do (especially now that the secret had been exposed) and everybody started putting out wide boards and bragging about working with Generator wood. I'd say the line got blurred around the late 2000's, but really up to that point, the disparity felt starker so the controversy probably held more water. it wasn't as much about making boards in sizes that would sell as it is now that we actually get to pick which board size we want to get. also the typical guideline according to which 'boards 8 and up are impossible to flip' was being thrown around a whole lot back then, discouraging people to go out of their way and - somehow - look for them.
about the wood, it's just a common myth I wanted to debunk, the one according to which one company should only work with this or that factory. in reality a lot of companies will do runs with Generator then with Dwindle, depending on the season, demand, expected quality (ie. logo board vs. pro board). not trying to sink anybody's ship here, just saying I see people fixating over woodshops sometimes like they're so exclusively affiliated with certain companies, everytime they buy a particular brand they're 100% sure to get the same wood, when it's not always the case.
shoe comment definitely didn't address the idea of style when it came out (although obviously, you do have the right idea). again to bring the context back, that was just around the time of the Koston 4's, Aeon / Link, early Lakai models and the peak of the D3, people were already skating in tanks, pissed those would decay still (merely just to have something to whine about), I don't think casual style whilst sporting skate shoes was a lot of skateboarders' focus at the time, at least in my area I remember everybody's priority was durability. then that interview dropped and pretty much shut (at least my) aspirations down.
that being said, your post makes perfect sense, just mostly as far as the last decade is concerned if anything, and I appreciate you taking the time to address mine. again, that was 15 years ago, and as far as I'm concerned I was younger and more naive and gullible for sure, but that is the whole point of this thread, not to mention the market back then was essentially a completely different planet, so a lot of my concerns of the time are now moot (or have been replaced with different ones, haha).
Topic: Misconception you had of professional skateboarding that was later clarified (Read 14976 times)